Texas Education Agency Chief Deputy Commissioner Richard Todd Webster lowered EPISD's accreditation status to probation and assigned a monitor to the district, who will report findings to the state.

Webster also directed the EPISD to hire outside companies to oversee testing and to identify the structural defects within the district that allowed the cheating scheme to thrive and go unchecked.

"The deficiencies identified at the EPISD reflect intentional, unethical and illegal acts that compromise the basic mission of the Texas Education system," Webster wrote in the letter. "The actions of the EPISD reflect not only an utter disregard for the needs of students served by the district but also a willingness to cast aside basic principles that form the foundation of our systems of instruction and accountability.

Advertisement

"These grave circumstances are compounded by the structural and organizational defects within the district that allowed this type of misconduct to flourish," Webster wrote. "The actions of the district, or, in certain cases, the district's failure to act, require me to intervene."

Interim Superintendent Terri Jordan declined an interview with the El Paso Times. The school district instead issued a statement that blamed former Superintendent Lorenzo García for the cheating scheme but did not mention actions by any other employees. The statement did not indicate that the district intended to appeal the sanctions.

"As you may recall, the district asked TEA to appoint an administrative partner earlier this year, so this move is not unexpected," Jordan, who has repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether she was involved or knew of the scheme, said in the statement. "The district will do everything possible to make the improvements necessary and welcomes TEA's help."

But TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said the district did not ask for a monitor, but rather a special administrative partner who would help review and implement policies regarding student records, credits, classification and grades in order to prevent future cheating on state-mandated tests. State agency officials denied the district's request in June, saying it had no one who fit the role of an administrative partner.

EPISD board President Isela Castaon-Williams, left, along with EPISD trustees David Dodge, Russell Wiggs and Patricia Hughes listen to Richard Dayoub, on screen, president and CEO of the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce at a board meeting. (Times file photo)

State law does allow the appointment of a monitor in certain circumstances.

"We have to have some reasons under a legal authority to do that and now, as all this information about fraudulent data has come out, now we think we can find some authority to warrant installing a monitor," Ratcliffe said.

The school board on Thursday will have a presentation on the monitor assignment and the process. Trustees will also meet with district lawyers behind closed doors to discuss the letter from the TEA.

'We needed to take action'

The agency's actions came nearly two years after the state agency cleared EPISD of allegations of wrongdoing brought up by then-state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh. Shapleigh had said the district was "disappearing" students in an effort to bypass state and federal accountability standards.

Action from the agency also came four months after the El Paso Times reported the findings of an internal audit that revealed grade-level tampering at Bowie High and two months after García pleaded guilty to two federal charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Those charges included scheming with at least six unnamed others to inflate student scores on state standardized tests at several campuses to avoid federal accountability sanctions.

Ratcliffe said action was delayed after initial news reports and after García's admission of guilt because the state agency was awaiting the findings of an investigation from the U.S. Department of Education, which it believed would be released this week.

But Ratcliffe said the release date for that report is now unclear. She said García's guilty plea, information from federal agencies about the ongoing investigation and various news stories published by the El Paso Times that detailed the scheme have heightened the need for action.

"We just felt that the situation had gotten serious enough that we couldn't wait any longer to take action," Ratcliffe said. "We needed to take action now to help the district get on sound footing."

State sanctions

Sanctions from the state agency mark the first punitive measures facing the district for the cheating scheme.

The agency moved the school district's status from accredited to accredited-probation, which is the final step before revoking a district's accreditation. The lowered status means that if the district does not work to address deficiencies, its accredited status will be revoked, agency officials said.

EPISD leaders must hire an "external accounting, auditing or legal services firm to identify the structural defects within the district that allowed the improper behavior, as noted above, to occur and remain unchecked," Webster wrote.

Any report stemming from such an investigation, according to Webster, must at least include recommendations for structural and procedural improvements and personnel actions to the school board, which can include "termination of staff as appropriate."

He also ordered board members and district employees to cooperate with the investigation.

The agency also required the district to hire an outside company to oversee and monitor test administration and test security for the 2012-13 school year and to make sure that employees, administrators and school board trustees receive training to prevent any wrongdoing in the future.

"While I am aware that certain pending federal investigations have yet to be finalized, the gravity of the current situation requires me to act now rather than awaiting those investigatory findings," Webster wrote. "Further, I strongly urge the board to take immediate and decisive action to address the issues identified and restore public confidence in the district's operations."

The outside companies that the state agency directed the district to hire seem to have similar roles to that of a task force that James "Jimmy" Vasquez, the executive director of the Region 19 Education Service Center, started at the request of school board members.

Vasquez said his task force, which has chosen to close its meetings to the public, would continue its work despite the new developments.

"I don't see it conflicting with what we're doing, not at all," Vasquez said. He said his group is working on policy suggestions that will include the creation of a public integrity unit that will report to the school board.

School district officials will also have to work with Judy Castleberry, former executive director of the Region 20 Service Center in San Antonio, who will serve as the state-appointed monitor.

EPISD will be required to pay $75 an hour and travel expenses for Castleberry, who will evaluate the district's performance, sit in on closed-door school board meetings and provide monthly reports to the state agency.

School district officials have until Aug. 27 to appeal the sanctions. Webster, in his letter, said the state agency could choose to implement further punitive measures in the future.

Late response

Shapleigh and other community members, who recalled that state agency officials in October 2010 cleared the district of wrongdoing, said Monday that the actions came too late.

"TEA failed to do any audit, covered up its own failures, then gave García carte blanche to disappear kids," Shapleigh said. "To gain any credibility here, Governor (Rick) Perry and TEA need to apologize to our children and give us the name of the employee who failed to do his job."

Frances Wever, the former president of the El Paso Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel, echoed Shapleigh's remarks.

Wever is a member of Reform EPISD, a general-purpose political action committee that has called for the resignation of board members who failed to perform their duties even after being advised of irregularities and the removal of employees who were involved in illegal or unethical conduct.

"If TEA was part of the problem, then TEA isn't going to fix the problem," Wever said. "I'd really hate to see a monitor from TEA come in because TEA didn't do anything in the first place.

"TEA is acting now like they're so shocked," Wever said. "They've known about it for a long time and didn't do anything. TEA needs to clean their own house because someone at TEA was in cahoots with García. How can we trust anybody who comes from TEA?"

Federal accountability standards require that a certain number of high-school sophomores in the state pass the English and math parts of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test.

Before García admitted to rigging the system to keep low-performing students from taking the test, the TEA said it found no evidence to prove Shapleigh's claim that students were "disappearing."

U.S. Department of Education officials also seemed prepared to let the district off with only minor findings until García was arrested by the FBI on unrelated charges for steering a $450,000 no-bid contract to a girlfriend.

Ratcliffe said the state's investigation into wrongdoing at the district had a narrow focus. She said the agency looked into whether students disappeared and were no longer included in the testing program or in enrollment and was able to track those students.

"I think there's enough blame to go around on all sides with this situation," Ratcliffe said. "It's really disheartening to see a district in this shape. It's time to focus forward and really talk about what can we all do, working together or independently, to get this district back on track where it is a respected and credible school district again."

Pressed on whether she believed the agency should have caught the cheating scheme, Ratcliffe said the question was difficult to answer.

"We trust our districts to provide us with accurate and reliable information and that didn't happen in this case," Ratcliffe said. "We'll remember this situation the next time an issue like this comes up and we might be able to deal with that next district differently but based on the information we had at the time and based on the narrow focus of our investigation, it's really hard to second guess whether we would have done something different."

Ratcliffe said the agency would not respond to Shapleigh's comments demanding an apology for students.

Josh Havens, a spokesman for Perry, also did not directly address Shapleigh's comments but said the governor depends on the state's education agency to make sure districts are working in the interest of students.

"If ever any evidence of unethical or illegal acts are found within our schools, the governor expects the Texas Education Agency to take the actions it deems necessary in order to restore the integrity of our educational system," Havens said.

State Sen. José Rodríguez, D-El Paso, said the state agency took long-overdue steps to correct the wrongdoing that occurred at the district.

"While my opinion is that the agency should have taken some steps sooner, the fact is that they are taking the steps now and we should always be looking forward to what we can do to improve the district," Rodríguez said. "We've talked a lot about improving the public's trust, I think these measures are a way of doing that."

But Rodríguez said much more needs to be done and many questions remain unanswered.

"We still need to do whatever we can to provide some help to students who were affected by this and, so far, while we have talked about it peripherally, I am not aware of any steps to do something about it," Rodríguez said.

District officials said the district is working to identify students who did not receive a diploma and offer support for them to finish their studies.

Administrators, though, have not publicly detailed any such effort and Rodríguez said the school board's president never answered a question he sent her about how EPISD would help the students hurt by the scheme.

Rodríguez said he is working on legislation that would increase the subpoena power of the TEA to conduct investigations, establish a statewide program that would require districts to provide educational opportunities to students affected by cheating schemes, strengthen whistleblower provisions in the law and enhance penalties for people who engage in cheating schemes such as the one that took place at EPISD.

Zahira Torres may be reached at ztorres@elpasotimes.com; 512-479-6606.